


Letters to Zuko

by aquietlife



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Also the Iroh-Zuko growth is just something I love, Episode: s03e10 The Day of Black Sun Part 1: The Invasion, Episode: s03e11 The Day of Black Sun Part 2: The Eclipse, Gen, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Iroh writes letters to Zuko, POV Iroh (Avatar), Protective Iroh (Avatar), Zuko's Childhood (Avatar), an Iroh pov because I feel like that's not done as often as it should be!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27837619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquietlife/pseuds/aquietlife
Summary: "Zuko, now you are older, do you see how fragile a pure heart is? Do you see how easily the world rewards cruelty and apathy while crushing kindness and empathy? A pure heart is not something the world always protects – much less our worlds among the fire nation royalty."While being held captive in the fire nation prison, Iroh writes a letter to Zuko. He isn't sure if his nephew will ever receive it let alone read it - but he writes it anyway.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Letters to Zuko

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Zuko's betrayal of Iroh in end of Book 2, before Iroh's escape from the fire nation prison in the Day of the Black Sun episode (Book 3).

My nephew Zuko,

_How do you escape the past?_

You asked me that once a long time ago, voice hollowed, eyes down-set.

Like as if the past is some distant shadowy figure that trails behind you wherever you go.

But no, the past is not something you can just simply outsmart and outrun. To try and rid oneself of the past is to like trying to rid oneself of the self – the past is something that permeates every fibre and facete of your being whether you like it or not. It is in the breath you breathe, the clothes you wear, the hands that spark the fires you burn. It is in the way you walk, the way you speak, the way you stand up for the weak with that ever-slight tremor of anger in your voice.

Zuko, I watched from a distance when I shouldn’t have; when the world started coming down in flames bit by bit. I carried the past like a polar bear-dog returns a stick to its master – unquestioning, eager to please, ready to fulfill the destiny set by our ancestors. I never once questioned my place in the world, and knew nothing but of the desires of wealth, power and status.

How I wish I had acted earlier, before it was too late.

You may not have been old enough to realise this then – but as a young boy, you reminded me so much of your cousin Lu Ten. You were both idealistic, loving, determined, eager to please young boys with the purest of hearts. It was simultaneously heart-warming and heart-wrenching to see the amount of care and consideration you two seemed to so naturally afford to the world. Whether it was Lu Ten stealing buns from the kitchen to pass on to the palace servants; or you chasing off sea hawks to save little anemone-crabs. Part of me watching wondered – was I or Ozai ever once that too - a sweet, innocent young boy?

Zuko, now you are older, do you see how fragile a pure heart is? Do you see how easily the world rewards cruelty and apathy while crushing kindness and empathy? A pure heart is not something the world always protects – much less our worlds among the fire nation royalty.

I watched as my kind, warm Lu Ten grew to believe kindness was a weakness, and that mass massacres and raging violence was the only way to preserve the nation’s honor. This was not a decision made by his natural character, but by force. He joined the wars not out of personal conviction, not out of nationalistic pride – but because he looked up to _me_ as his role model: his father, the leader of wars, the great Dragon of the West. 

The Dragon of the West. That is the name of a man who had led his life in complete blindness and never bothered to look for a light.

I am ashamed to say that I was forced to reconcile the consequences of my own actions only when my son died. Yes, it is a shameful thing – because it shows how little empathy I had for the suffering of others before then. I could not feel for the pain I was inflicting on others until the world served me a taste of my own medicine. I did not see the truly cruel nature of my own supposed ‘destiny’ – and by the time I did, it was too late and not only was my only child was gone, but also thousands of hundreds of young fire, water, earth and air nation men just like him.

Wars come at a human cost, Zuko.

Deaths, injuries, lives lost. Refugees, broken families, villages torn apart. In our very own nation: poverty, famine and sickness spreads as money is siphoned into the military instead of human welfare. In other nations: men off forced to fight a war they did not start, villagers living with the sickening fear that one day they will see the horned ships of the fire nation rise against their horizons.

Understand Zuko: that when I urge you to look into yourself and ask for who you are and what you want, I am only doing so because it is what I wish I had done to myself when I was your age.

Because if I had – Lu Ten would still be here, millions of lives would have been spared, and perhaps, you wouldn’t be where you are today. A world where Lu Ten lives and you are a happy, scar-free, carefree boy again is a world I dream so fervently for in contrast to what I felt was a waking nightmare.

No matter what happens, however, the sun continues rising and falling. The moon continues pulling the tides inward and pushing them out. And with time, we can only learn to accept what has happened and make the most of what we are given.

For you, it is accepting your father as who he really is and not who you want him to be. I do not think you are near accepting that yet, and it worries me.

But that’s alright.

I understand, Zuko.

I understand because I used to be where you are now.

I too once could not accept the reality as it was. The cruelty of my forefathers, the thoughtlessness of my own actions - eventually, the reality that my son, no matter what I do, will no longer continue growing and sharing this earth with me. 

But I now accept that those are things that have happened which I can no longer change.

And that opened my eyes to accepting something anew too: you. 

Yes, you, Zuko. Realising that amidst my storm of pain and loss, I still had you. No longer the wide-eyed, innocently pure-hearted boy you once were – but still you. My blood and bones nephew, who has been beaten down to believe that his kindness too, is a form of weakness, and that cold strength and violence is the only way to win your father’s love.

Just like Lu Ten once saw of his own father.

The parallels were almost too uncomfortable for me to handle – and that is why I left, why I kept my distance. During the Agni Kai against your father, I couldn’t bear but to look away when your father struck his deadly blow. But why? Why had I looked away? Why hadn’t I stood up? I didn’t do enough, I didn’t step in - and here you are where you are today.

That night, I felt discomfort in my belly transform into raw, renewed grief; and grief transform into pure, unperturbed fear. A fear that if I didn’t act soon enough, I would witness for the second time in my life, the loss of an innocent, pure-hearted boy to this merciless war.

But Zuko, this fear is good – because it grew instead into hope. I am afraid of you losing yourself – because I know that deep below all the scars that the past has imprinted on you, you still have a kind heart worth losing. And that gives me hope that all is not over – and that I may still have the chance to bring you back to the boy you once were. And maybe if I can help you, I can too help Azula, or even my own brother, to right the path we’ve wronged for so long, just as I did a long time ago after leaving Ba Sing Se.

So how do you escape the past?

Zuko, there is no way you can ever _escape_.

Just as an earth bender faces rocks and boulders face-on, you must confront your past and learn to sit with it face on. Give it time, pour it some tea, make friends with it. Let it chew into your bones, pull open your wounds, fill your lungs and veins. See it for what it is with unclouded eyes, accept it is what it is and then - learn to let it be.

Even when a tiny village grows into a magnificent city, one part of the city will always still be that tiny, old-fashioned, slightly run-down little village. Some may call it a heritage site; others may try to build new structures over it. Regardless, it is what it is – a remnant of the past that is and will always be part and parcel of the city – just as the past will always be part and parcel of our souls and lives.

I know this doesn’t sound very appealing, needing to accept the painful parts of your past no matter how much you may want to erase them. But remember Zuko, just as much as your father's cruelty, your banishment and your fruitless chases after the avatar is part of your past; so is watching opera shows with your mother, building sandcastles with me and Lu Ten, and giving out your toys secretly to poor street boys outside the palace walls because you couldn't bear them looking so sad on Fire Nation Day. 

Your past will always be a part of you; but ultimately you have the freedom to decide which of the past stays with you, and which of the past you have outgrown.

You get to decide who you want to be in the present.

You are not bound by your past, nor by your future – you are bound only to the decisions you make in every passing present moment.

If anything, Zuko, I will leave you with this: you cannot escape the past, but the past will no longer haunt you when you can accept it for what it is. It is then that we can have the self-compassion and clarity of mind to let the past go and choose the paths we want to walk for ourselves.

I will rest my brush here nephew. The day of the black sun is approaching. It can be both a dangerous and a hopeful day depending on how you see it. I would remind you to be careful - but you know I would just be nagging because I care.

Instead, I will instead remind you to have clarity of mind and meet your past with an unclouded mind when the day of the black sun arrives.

I hope to see you again soon my nephew. Outsmarting fire nation soldiers isn’t quite as fun without you by my side.

Your uncle always,  
Iroh

**Author's Note:**

> The concept of seeing fear/ the past with unclouded eyes is taken from an Iroh quote from the comic Smoke and Shadow! The analogy of the tiny village that reminds part of the large city - in the way our past stays with us, is taken from Noah Rasheta's podcast 'Secular Buddhism'.


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